FAQS Boys

UPDATED FOR 2016/2017 SEASON

For top travel (national) teams, $2,200-2400 for the year (September through nationals in July) depending on travel tournaments. For the second (regional) teams, between $1400 and 1,800 depending on the travel tournaments the teams agree to attend. For the 10-week practice (local) teams, $300 for each 10-week session (2.5 hours per week). The fees mainly cover practices (cost is approximately $12.50-$15 per hour per player) and tournament entry fees. It also covers uniforms, a share of the coach’s expenses (travel, etc.), and misc. other things such as balls, administrative costs, etc. National teams will go to 3-5 bid tournaments (travel tournaments where teams can earn a spot in the open division at US AV nationals). Bid tournaments include Far Westerns in San Mateo, Calif. Jan. 7-8; SCVA Invitational in Anaheim, Calif. Jan. 27-29; Chicago or Rochester over Martin Luther King weekend (Jan. 14-16); Nittany invitational (Penn State) Jan. 28-29 (17/18s); Florida Fest in Jacksonville, Fla (Feb. 4-5); Gateway Festival in Indianapolis, Feb. 3-5; Boys Atlantic in Harrisburg, Pa., (14s, 15s, and 16s) Feb. 25-26; and the East coast championships over Memorial day weekend. NOTE: It has been Warren Sixpack policy since it’s inception that every player who wants to play volleyball should be able to participate, regardless of ability to pay. Fundraising opportunities are available to cover club fees. Contact Fred, Dan or Colleen for information.

At every level, he’ll get practices with top coaches (college coaches Pedro Trevino of Rutgers Newark, Jason Madsen of College of Staten Island, Dan Goncalves and Brennan Dyer of NJIT, Fred Siegle of Brookdale, and Dan Sempkowski of Georgian Court University will be helping run practices in 2016/17) other coaches have college playing experience and most have at least several years coaching club). He’ll also play a National Level of competition and practice with the best players in the state and will compete against the best players and teams in the country. Most of our players go on to play in college (see the alumni list on the main page) and we have contact with virtually every college program and coaches. He’ll also get a lifetime of friendship with teammates.

We generally will have 9-10 players per team and at the younger age groups (up to 16-under) we try to have all players get a fair share of playing time. Older teams and National level teams that are in more competitive situations probably will have less equal distribution, but we try not to place players in situations where they won’t have a role on the team. Of course, at any tournament situation a coach may have to adjust playing time in order to strive to win. We may also place a player on a team with an agreement between player, coaches and parents that playing time may be sparse, but only with pre-agreement.

Players have to register with USA volleyball. About $65 , that covers insurance for the players when they practice and play. We provide the team shirts. Parents cover travel costs (we will help set up car pools and player rooms (USAV approved chaperones for each team will be assigned). Parents share the cost of player rooms.

Travel! For the top teams, I would say to expect about $900 -1100 for flying (that doesn’t include parents – the biggest chunk of that is the California tournament and Nationals), and also the cost of hotels at the travel tournaments. For the second teams the cost is much less because they don’t fly to California and might only have one or two tournaments that require flying. The team fees do not include travel expenses (airfare, hotel, meals, etc.).

We pretty much don’t do tournaments during the school season but will have practices on Sunday every 2-3 weeks during that time (and more often as we get closer to the Richmond Tournament at the end of May). It’s possible there might be a tournament in late April/early May if the kids were able to do it.

There are always new players who haven’t done this before, and we would keep the participation at a level they would be comfortable with. If your son is a candidate for the top teams, we will let you know. In general, players and teams start on a more regional level and do about 5 local (new jersey/new york/pa.) one-day tournaments between December and March. The travel tournaments they would do would be the JVA in Harrisburg Pa. 2-day for 14-under, 15-under, and 16-under teams) and Richmond in May. So the actual team-related fees for that group would be closer to $1400 (and the majority of that is for practices). As the team members become more involved and also improve, the participation level would probably rise, especially for the players who show the most improvement.

Players are expected to be in their parent’s hotel rooms (We generally set up hotel blocks that parents then register in so we can keep the players/teams together). . We’ll have some players that travel without their parents, but generally most parents do travel. We have the players without parents share rooms and the related expenses, and have chaperones to keep an eye on them. For tournament arrival (non-flying), we just have everyone get there when they can (in general, for the travel tournaments that start on a Saturday, everyone needs to get there on Friday – we set up the hotels, nearly everyone stays in the same hotels (and most travel tournaments have hotels they require us to use). From there, we generally set up a meeting time for everybody to leave the hotel and go to the tournament site.

In general yes. Most tournaments are what they call Stay- to -play tournaments which means they require teams to use their hotels and we need to set up so everyone is together. It makes things better for team unity, for logistics etc. also we usually have to contract for a certain number of rooms and that requires that everybody be in the same hotel also. We try to always stay in moderate-priced hotels ($90-$110) that have free breakfast (a big cost savings). Only in extremely special circumstances should anyone ever set up their own lodging.